Considering Transmission Impairments in Wavelength Routed Networks

Abstract

Abstract — We consider dynamically reconfigurable wavelength routed networks in which lightpaths carrying IP traffic are on demand established. We face the Routing and Wavelength Assignment problem considering as constraints the physical impairments that arise in all-optical wavelength routed networks. In particular, we study the impact of the physical layer when establishing a lightpath in transparent optical network. Because no signal transformation and regeneration at intermediate nodes occurs, noise and signal distortions due to non-ideal transmission devices are accumulated along the physical path, and they degrade the quality of the received signal. We propose a simple yet accurate model for the physical layer which consider both static and dynamic impairments, i.e., nonlinear effects depending on the actual wavelength/lightpath allocation. We then propose a novel algorithm to solve the RWA problem that explicitly considers the physical impairments. Simulation results show the effectiveness of our approach. Indeed, when the transmission impairments come into play, an accurate selection of paths and wavelengths which is driven by physical consideration is mandatory. I